Having gone through similar surgery to that undertaken by Andy Murray last year, leading curler Eve Muirhead has admitted she may again emulate her fellow Scot by subjecting herself to a second operation in a bid to get back to the top of her sport.
Speaking after her rink’s surprise defeat by Team Jackson in the Scottish Curling Championship final at Perth’s Dewars Centre, the 28-year-old said she has not regained full fitness since the procedure on her hip at the end of last season and is now looking to take time to re-evaluate.
“I don’t know what the summer will bring, but I’m still not 100 per cent and I would like to just sit down and have a think and see what I want to do going forward,” she said.
“I’m a competitive athlete. I want to carry on knowing that we are capable of winning the Worlds and winning Olympic medals and I want to make sure we’re in position to do that. So, I want to have a think about my hip and see if there’s anything else I maybe need to do to get back to 100 per cent, because I would say I was still at 70 per cent.
“If I could get a new hip tomorrow I would jump at the opportunity [but] it’s not even a year yet, so it’s still quite early and I’m still doing a lot of re-hab for it, so I’m hoping it’s going to get better, but I don’t know if this is the best it’ll be. That’s an unanswered question.”
That second operation is among the options she said she would consider, but she knows there are a lot of implications to consider.
“If I knew it was going to fix it and I’d be 100 per cent then yes, but it’s important that you look at timing and things like that. If it is surgery, nothing’s guaranteed, that’s the worrying thing,” said Muirhead. “I love curling and that’s why I do it and that’s why I go through all the re-hab and do everything every day to get back on the ice and I’m just grateful that I am even back on the ice. It’s just recognising whether I can get even better than I am, because I know I need to get better because we’re not as good as I know we’re capable of being.”
The former world champion, a seven-time Scottish Championship winner and team-mates Jen Dodds, Vicki Chalmers and Lauren Gray were beaten 11-7 in Saturday’s final by rival skip Sophie Jackson and her team-mates, Naomi Brown, Milli Smith and Sophie Sinclair, after conceding a decisive count of five in the seventh end.
On a disappointing day for the Muirhead clan, her brothers Glen and Thomas and their fellow 2018 Winter Olympians Kyle and Cammy Smith, were beaten 7-5 in the men’s final by the defending champions Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan.
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